


Devotion

by OmegaZeta5



Category: Super Smash Brothers, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: ALttP Zelda, Angst, F/M, Post-BOTW Link, Post-BOTW Zelda, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:21:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26381071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmegaZeta5/pseuds/OmegaZeta5
Summary: "You didn't do anything wrong.""Evidently I did."Sequel to Only Natural.
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 49
Kudos: 50





	1. The Theory

**Author's Note:**

> shout out to intangiblyyours for putting herself through this

_ “You have everything, correct?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ “It’s all right there in the slate?” _

_ “Yep.” _

_ “The master sword, the royal shield, the trident, the eightfold and the-“ _

_ “The frogs too, can’t forget those.” _

_ “Don’t make fun.” _

_ “Not when it makes your cheeks flush like that.” _

_ “You’re impossible.” _

_ “And I packed the most important item.” _

_ “Hm?” _

_ “Oh yeah. Take a looksie.” _

_ “Link!” _

_ “The most essential item in all of Hyrule.” _

_ “That’s such an unflattering angle-“ _

_ “Doesn’t exist.” _

_ “Liiink.” _

_ “I’m getting it framed later. It’s going right by the bed, wherever they put me.” _

_ “…I think I can permit that.” _

_ “Glad to have the lady’s permission.” _

_ “Because that is what you were after this entire time, of course.” _

_ “Of course.” _

__

_ “I love you.” _

_ “Love you too.” _

* * *

She lies on her side and watches the expanse of his back. The house is completely, utterly silent save their breathing. She watches for a while longer, the ripple in his back with each exhale.

“Hey.” Zelda says, her voice alien to her.

“Hm?” Link stays on his side.

“Let’s go to the beach.”

He doesn’t answer right away. 

“Alright,” he grunts as he goes to sit up.

It doesn’t take them long to get there. The waves glimmer under the full moon and Zelda walks barefoot, letting the gentle air kiss her face and stroke her hair as the tide tickles her toes. Palm trees rustle and sway. They stand like ghosts. She’s never felt very strongly about the beach one way or the other. She knows he does though.

Link’s boots crunch on the sand. His hand is limp in hers.

* * *

“I have a theory.” She says, sitting on the patio with schematics laid out in front of her. 

Paya peeks over the blueprint clenched tight in her fingers. “You always have those,” she says but her expression remains incredulous as always.

Zelda bites the inside of her cheek and thinks. “What did you think? When you saw him again?”

Paya blushes and the image is sweet in the morning sun.

“Well I-I thought it was him.”

Zelda’s brow furrows at nothing. “You didn’t notice anything…strange? Nothing in the gait of his steps or the responsiveness of his eyes?”

Paya smiles half-heartedly, lowering the sheet. “Truthfully I think you’re the only one who pays attention to those sorts of things, Your Grace.”

Zelda sighs. “Paya.”

Paya immediately seizes up. “Apologies Your Grace- oop, I’m sorry!”

She doesn’t very well call her ‘Lady Paya,’ does she? Why should either of them conform to tradition? Even so, the girl struggles with the dropping of formalities. Zelda tries a smile.

“You’re probably correct though. I know who I am.”

Paya nods vigorously and is quick to return to her previous work. Zelda’s gaze lowers back down to the work laid out before her. She doesn’t really see it.

* * *

“Ugh, I’m going to be late-“

She’s rushing around the living room, gathering her things with the schedule laid out on the table. He leans against the wall with his arms crossed, right between two hunks of steel hung up on the wall. Zelda doesn’t give herself enough time to really stop and take the image in. She snatches the schedule up again, going over the contents with her face all scrunched up in the pale light of the early sun.

“Just as I suspected. We’ll soon be falling behind in the castle repairs.”

She delegates where she can in her work. The territories are so vast, she almost has to. Even so, the castle is a top priority and one of the more arduous redevelopment plans she has under her belt.

She bites her lip. “This simply cannot do. We’ve already received the next shipment of supplies and the last thing we need is overstock just sitting there on a silver platter. We’re definitely going to have to work into the night.”

“Is it safe?”

She almost jumps at the sound, quiet and solid. She stops and looks at him for the first time that morning. His shoulders drooped the way they’ve been ever since he’d returned. The slight glaze in his eyes, sluggishly watching her every movement.

“Yes. Well. As safe as it can be for now, anyway- most of the residual malice has been disposed of. The more glaring structural damages have been amended. And our Royal Guard, while certainly green, still vastly outnumber any potential stray monsters or Yiga stragglers that may or may not currently occupy the territory. And that’s supposing we left any for there to straggle.”

Rambling. He nods without saying anything. The movement’s slow.

“That’s good.” Flat.

Her heart’s in her head. She tries to smile but it doesn’t come out right.

“It’s certainly a far cry from here- and, thank you so much, again. I don’t know where I’d have stayed if but here.”

He regards her with an expression she can’t make. “Paya would’ve taken you in, definitely. Maybe Sidon.”

Zelda nods with her smile, the act stiff as a dull ache pounds at her chest.

“Perhaps.” Silence. Zelda scuffles the paper, rummages through her bag for nothing. She looks at him again after a while. He hasn’t moved.

“…You don’t have to accompany me today, by the way.”

He blinks and he’s up and away from the wall and she tries to mask her face. His gaze is a little closer.

“No, no, please,” she breathes out, “I insist. I understand how exhausted you must be, considering.”

He rolls his jaw around, his face scrunched up together. Her spirits lift at the sight and she waits for the inevitable. But then he really looks at her and his shoulders fall again.

“You sure it’s safe?”

Her smile flickers but she puts her hand on his chest anyway. He’s solid under her fingers, like a stone impression instead of the genuine article.

“Of course! You’ve only just returned, after all. It’d be heartless of me to drag you around to my every whim so quickly.”

_ Refute me. _ He stares at her, rolling his jaw still. “It’s been a few days.”

Yes, yes? She’s tingly and something’s in her throat and her hand moves to his face without her really thinking. Her fingers graze the skin so lightly and immediately she sees it. The tightening of his jaw, the strain on his temples, the slight flare of his nostrils. She almost wants to pull away as if nothing happened but her hand stays there and she looks at him. He stares and she may as well not even be there.

“Even so. Surely I cannot have my appointed knight in anything but tip-top shape, right?”

His smile is thin, tight over his face. Take the out, I know you want to. I see it.

He sighs through his nose, hot air tickling the small of her wrist. “Alright. Just please be safe.”

She nods at the rehearsed words, like they’ve actually reached some sort of understanding. After a moment of waiting, thinking, she leans in. Her eyes catch his again and her lips stop just above his. She searches. Nothing. She thinks and then her lips brush his cheek. It’s cold.

Zelda smiles and strokes his face one last time before she’s out the door.

* * *

“Linky seemed just fine to me, last we spoke.”

Purah turns from her tinkering at the table and stands on the chair inside Hateno Lab. Zelda still has to lower her gaze some just to match her eyes.

“Very well, I’m glad to hear it.” Comes as more of a sigh if anything. Perhaps she didn’t notice.

“Yes yes, so what troubles you?”

Zelda cringes in the warm light of the lab. It’s raining outside, the drops invisible in the night.

Purah rolls her eyes, puny hands on her hips as she stands defiant. “You don’t really mean to try and fool me with a face like that, do you?”

Zelda shifts in her feet, hand to her chest and gaze still lowered, “I’m letting my imagination get the better of me. Nothing more.”

Purah squints, leaning forward with her head dipped and brow raised, “And there’s suddenly a problem with letting one’s imagination run wild?”

Zelda freezes. “Of course not.”

“So?” Drawing it out, urging her forward, “Spill, spill!” 

Their eyes lock and Zelda sighs after a while. “It’s absurd, really.”

“Hmph. I’d sure  _ hope _ it to be, after where that boy’s been? Anything less would be downright boring.”

Zelda tries to muster up the courage to speak her piece. “In going where he went and fighting the battles he fought, is it…”

Oh, the thought’s too unbearable to utter aloud. Purah stares, suspicious. Zelda swallows.

“…is it not possible for him to have contracted some sort of foreign illness?”

Purah blinks. “I suppose. Any possible symptoms?”

Zelda’s breath comes out shaky and she’s glad to have fessed up to her worry. Part of it, at the very least. “He just seems so tired. He’s lethargic, he hardly eats or drinks anything. His reaction time is slower.”

And he flinches at my touch. Or perhaps she’s misremembering. Inconclusive. Must run another test.

Purah tilts her head up and taps her chin, nodding. “Mm. Very well. We’re hardly physicians here, but you drag him up to the lab one of these days and we’ll treat him to something like a checkup at the very least.”

Zelda nods, beaming as best she can. “Thank you, Purah.”

“Come now girl, give me a nice snap.”

Oh dear. The blood rushes to Zelda’s face as she attempts the task. It’s a rather small noise and Purah jumps excitedly.

“Perfect!” 

The doors clatter open on their hinges and Symin’s panting in the frame. His glasses are fogged and his back hunched as he steadies himself with his hand.

“Director, I’m afraid I’ve become a bit wet.”

“Oh for goddess’s sake, hurry in hurry in you’re letting in the rain-”

“I couldn’t carry the flame.”

“Well of course, it’s raining! Who on earth told you to do that?”

Symin stares through the fog of his lenses before retreating to the bookshelves. Purah taps her foot against the chair while shaking her head and Zelda’s watching, shifting a little less in her feet.

* * *

The results of the checkup are inconclusive. Something about it must’ve spurred him some, though. He goes with her everywhere now, unfailingly and without complaint. It’s almost familiar. Always at a distance. She beckons him over sometimes. Photograph this. Record that. He does what’s asked. If she moves to take his hand he’s fine. At least so she thinks. He won’t move to take hers. It’s approaching a week since his return and she hasn’t felt his touch. He doesn’t sleep. Closing her eyes while his are still wide open feels wrong, so she tries not to. If he notices, he never shows it. He’s never talked much, but that never felt wrong when she learned the meaning of his words. Now there aren’t any.

* * *

They’re in Kakariko again. Zelda’s with Paya, arm hooked under hers as they watch the guards tend to the goddess statue in the center of the village. Paya often has to be reminded not to tend to them the way she used to, these days. It’s quiet save for the trickle of the waterfall and the occasional flap of a cucco, the rapid thud of Link’s steps following. Up, down and around, over and over again. There’s something normal in his eyes, some of that luster as he scowls in his chase. Almost normal.

She observes him for a while longer. Her expression goes limp.

“…Is it me?”

“Y-your Grace?”

Zelda’s face immediately resets to neutral position. “This whole time I’ve been concerned with the physical and not the mental. Perhaps there’s something there.”

Paya studies her with big red eyes. “That’s not what you said.”

“I don’t know what I said.”

Paya’s still looking at her. Zelda prepares her smile as she turns to her, a reassuring hand on the girl’s arm.

“Everything’s alright, Paya. You needn’t worry, believe me.”

She hates to see Paya like that. Especially over her. 

Zelda’s back to observing the task at hand when a gentle, hesitant hand suddenly brushes over her own sleeve. She looks back and Paya’s nodding, almost more to herself rather than her.

“Just a little more time, Your Grace. Everything will be just as it was before. Y-you’ll see.”

Zelda’s smile is more genuine. Her own hand brushes over the girl’s. Paya’s cheeks flush to match the color of her insignia and she turns away with a scrunched up face.

“Oh, I’m just no good at this sort of thing, no good at all. I’m nothing like-“

“You’re wonderful, Paya. You truly are.”

* * *

Something’s there. Her eyes open and at first she can’t make heads or tails of what’s before her. The flicker and grain subside and the room’s an ink blue in the beams of moonlight and her breath catches in her throat. His hand at her hair, fingers brushing it away from her face. His eyes, blue and firm and on her. She can’t decide between his hand or his face, eyes darting between the two. Reflexively she goes for the hand, kissing the knuckles in her fingers. 

Something burns in his gaze then and his hand pries itself from her grasp, running firmly and deliberately down her arm. Her flesh is his to mold beneath the gown and his hand comes to a rest at her hip, comfortable, known. Her lashes flutter, her lungs weak. Her hand, now free, cups his cheek. He doesn’t retreat. She’s weak as the dam cracks and relief starts to trickle in.

“Oh, Link.” She whispers. She begins to rise from the sheets, her heart swelling.

His hand slides up her side and the pressure in it forces her down. Her lips shut. He rolls her onto her back, effortless as the sheets slide off him and he’s over her, knees digging into the bed on either side of her. She can’t hide the confusion as he looms over her and buries his stare into her and suddenly nothing is familiar anymore. 

She doesn’t like it like this. He knows she doesn’t. He knows why. Why? Her mouth opens but all that escapes is a small, airy sound as he fumbles under her gown with his hand, his breaths rough and- and not him.

Dark. It’s all dark and black and this purple-red seeps into the corners of it and he grunts as he fumbles and nothing is- where, where is the air? It’s just there, right out of her reach and it always will be and she’ll never escape, she’ll never live she’ll never breathe it’s all  _ it’s all- _

“ _ Link- _ “ Strangled, fading but suddenly the blackness stops and the air floods back over her and she gasps as he wrenches himself up and off the bed, staggering and panting.

Her feet slide and kick at the sheets as she scrambles away, deeper into the corner of the wall where the bed meets it. Her chest heaves and for a moment he’s like an animal, hunched and grunting and eyes glinting in the blue light. It inches towards her and she draws further into herself, her hair sticking to her face and her eyes wide through the strands.

He stays like that for a moment more until the glint vanishes and his shape draws up, arms hanging to his side and knees bent and face worn. He looks over his handiwork and his pants calm as something clicks.

“Goddesses. Goddesses I. I’m-”

He stumbles to the steps in a daze, swallowed up in the descent. Zelda’s arms are tight around her legs and she can’t stop heaving. A cloud passes over and dims the light and she jumps before sinking further down in her crevice, hanging her head as she does it.

* * *

Always turned away. He stands watch, peering over some cliffside or stream or lake like a statue as she works a few yards away. Zelda wanted him closer before. She can feel his eyes on her when her back's turned. Maybe she wants him further away. He sleeps outside now, right by the steps. She can’t decide if it’s ache or desire that keeps her up now. It’s just a muddy, infested water that roots her to one spot and she has to pull to free herself of it. It’s his bed. If anyone should leave it, it’s her.

* * *

Children soar on the frigid wind. It nips at Zelda’s face as she watches them flap their little wings and shout and laugh in the setting sun that stains the clouds orange-red. She’s been on this platform before, many times. There’s always some spot in each kingdom she’s afraid of returning to, and there’s always a Beast looming somewhere overhead. The memories are distracting. She doesn’t need those right now. He’s enough as it is. He’s not here now and the relief his absence brings frustrates her.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

There’s something calming in Kass’s presence. Zelda doesn’t jump when she hears him, as if he’d been standing there the entire time.

“They have a wonderful father to teach them.”

His plumage ruffles and his head dips bashfully, “Oh, they pick up most things from their mother.”

“And how is Amali? I’m afraid I haven’t had the chance to say hello.”

“Tired,” Kass says, laughing, “As she often is. I try, but often find I can only do so much.”

Zelda nods, smiling. “All we can do is try, right?”

“Indeed.” Kass is gazing up at his children again and she’s moved by the adoration in it. Then she remembers the duty that separated him from them for a time and she looks away. His duty was just one of many consequences. She wasn’t there. Every step through Hyrule is a reminder. Link wasn’t either, at first. Another consequence.

The warbling grows louder and Kass chuckles embarrassedly.

“That, I’m afraid, is very much me.”

The children sing bits and pieces of a song Zelda is only partially familiar with. Always the books, never the music. Songs just couldn’t hold her, not even in those days when she could afford to stop and listen. Not the way they did Link. He’d always enjoyed the finer bits she always seemed to miss, nose buried in the pages. Like he understood things she couldn’t hope to with the numbers in her head, in her maps and her schematics. He never begrudged her for that. Maybe he should. Maybe he did.

_ Hope survives in Hyrule, for not all is lost _

_ Two brave souls protect it, no matter the cost _

_ A goddess-blood princess and fearless knight _

_ They appear in each age to fight the good fight _

The song breaks into more indistinct tones and Zelda’s left ruminating on her thoughts.

“Does the hymn trouble you, Your Grace?”

“N-not at all.” She means it. She looks at him uneasily. “Am I truly so terrible at guarding my face?”

“I do not see what’s so terrible about it," Kass says warmly. 

Zelda thinks, running over the words again and again in her head to ensure they come out right.

“I’ve grown so used to planning. So used to events falling into their proper place, according to these very same plans.”

“And when confronted with a rogue element you couldn’t hope to account for?”

“…I suppose I’m simply at a loss now, is all.”

The words still feel awkward and inadequate, but Kass nods all the same and it’s like he’d have gotten to the heart of it no matter what way Zelda put it. He returns to the children soaring ever higher in the dying light.

“There is always a plan, your highness. I can assure you of that.”

* * *

He watches her approach him from where he sits, craning his neck with his back to the side of the staircase. She crouches above him, knees drawn up and arms hiding most of her face. She peers down wordlessly at him. He can only hold the gaze for a moment before he looks away.

“I have a theory,” Zelda says.

It comes out as a whisper. Link doesn’t look up.

She opens her mouth, shaky. “All living beings are accustomed to routine. When someone leaves their environment for an extended period of time, they begin to shed these expectations and all of the biases associated with them.”

Clinical. Link remains silent. Zelda swallows.

“And the compromises. And depending on where they go…when they return, they may very well resent that which was once routine for them. And…this is fine.”

He shifts, just so. Eyes moving this and that way, lips tight.

“Change begets change. And a theory untested is just a hypothesis. S-so…tell me.” 

The silence is unbearable. Her head swims and it’s like she’s just woken up from a terrible nap.

“Tell you what?”

Her eyes refocus and he’s looking right at her, expression blank as ever but he’s actually looking at her. He doesn’t turn away.

Zelda blinks like the answer is obvious. “Tell me what I can do to change.”

Confusion across his face. “What?”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t understand.” Uncertainty again, in his voice. Something breathing life in there.

She laughs, the sound faint. “Don’t you see? You don’t have to wear such a brave face anymore. And I am more than willing to take the first step so…so that you can be happy again.”

He stares for an eternity, the shadows immortalizing his expression for their descendants to see. Suddenly he’s standing, still looking up at her. He’s breaking her open with his gaze and it’s like he can explore and plunder her to his heart’s content.

“Am I not around enough?” she blurts out, voice louder. “I’m so busy, and so often, and the tasks only continue to pile on ever higher. But I’m certain I can make arrangements to amend-“

The steps creak and he’s thundering his way up, still staring at her and his face is more determined than it’s ever been since his return. The room’s too hot and Zelda’s toes curl against the boards.

“Or am I around too often? I know I talk too much. I simply ramble on and on, never-ending and banal. If it’s more silence you need, I’m more than happy to-“

He kneels a step below her and her hands are in his, cold and shaking in the heat of his and he’s gazing up into her and the warmth, the constant, everything that vanished the day he left and didn’t return when he came back. She feels it fill her chest and her eyes squint with her lips trembling.

“You shouldn’t have to compromise,” she says, hushed, “You shouldn’t have to bear with anything less than what you deserve.”

He scours her face with his gaze, taking her in.

“I don’t.”

Daggers in her stomach, rising up to meet her chest. Does not compute. “But…but-“

“Zelda,” he says and it draws out as a sigh as his eyes shut and he rises up a step to her, “…You didn’t do anything wrong.”

She’s in his arms and she doesn’t have time to wonder at what that means.

* * *

Next morning. She’s alone on the bed and the world’s on its side, still dark. She doesn’t remember what happened after the talk. Maybe the talk didn’t happen either. What’s that smell?

A blanket’s wrapped around her shoulders and she steps down the stairs in her gown, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes to the front door wide open where the smell seems to be strongest and there’s something sizzling in a pot, faint but stronger with each step. She steps out and the sky’s a smooth gray, the air fresh and crisp and the dewed grass brushes at her ankles as her feet sink into the blades.

“Just in time.”

He’s awake, vibrant, still in his sleeping clothes with his tail undone and the hair falling a little past his neck. The ladle’s in his hands and he’s stirring the big pot outside with the smoke tickling the underside of it.

Zelda’s dazed as he sits her down on a stump and puts the bowl in her hands. Mushroom cream soup. She looks at this man and wonders where the one from this past week went.

“How’s the soup?” He asks after a while, without turning.

Right. The soup.

The spoon’s in her hand and past her lips as he stirs the pot and the world gets a little blurry. She takes another spoonful.

“It’s-“ she says and the tone of her voice gives it away. She can feel him smile.

“Good.”

They sit there and she has three servings, one after the other. Link just watches her eat, crouched and leaning in with his chin in his hand and his eyes on her and she's sheepish with her heart fluttering in her chest. When she’s finished he goes to get one small helping for himself from what’s left over. That familiar pang is there. It’s faint from how wonderful everything else is.

“There’s something, a richness to it that certainly didn’t exist prior,” She’s gesturing with her hands, bouncy, lively. “Do you, do you understand what I mean?”

He’s moving to rinse out the pot, back to her. “That’s probably the chu-chu jelly.”

Zelda laughs and the sound surprises her. “No, it isn’t.”

“It is.”

“It isn’t.”

“Okay.”

“Link, you did not put  _ chu-chu jelly _ in this, I refuse.”

“Well yeah, you did.”

Oh no, she knows this game. So many recipes saved on that Slate, so many instructions ripe for edits and changes. She’s lost count of how many times one of them’s tried to pull the wool up over the other. She tries to hide her smile. Goddesses, she  _ knows _ this game.

“I remember the clam chowder Link, I know what chu-chu jelly tastes like. Unfortunately…”

“Yeah, why’d you have such an obsession over that anyway?”

“You did that!” Laughing.

“I’ve never once touched a chu-chu. Not once in my life.”

The Slate’s right where he left it, strewn aside in the grass near her feet. She taps the spoon against the bowl. Normally she wouldn’t just grab it. Watching him, feeling him, everything he put into that breakfast. She feels daring for once. 

“Very well, I’ll prove it.”

It’s in her hands. Link looks over and something in his face is different.

“Hey-“

“My word. Eighteen  _ hundred _ new photos?”

She’s still smiling as she pulls the album up and Link rushes over to her, the pot forgotten. Zelda doesn’t recognize the people in the pictures. Of course not, how could she know them? Participants, most likely. That doesn’t seem very comfortable. And that looks downright painful!

She’s still smiling to herself as she shakes her head, swiping through the photos, “Why am I not surprised?”

Link looms over her, his hands at his sides. Perhaps he didn’t get along very well with these folk. She’d love to ask him about them sometime, now that everything’s right again.

She swipes again and stops.

A girl with ears just like theirs. Blonde, pretty in an impish sort of way. Zelda almost doesn’t notice her at first. All she sees is Triforce. Her breath hitches in her throat and the smile slips as she registers it, embroidered on the pink of her dress, inlaid in the gold of her belt, golden triangles hanging from her ears. Blue eyes, sparkling.

“Who is this?” Zelda asks, her expression soft and wide as she stares. Something she can’t explain, in her bones.

“It’s…she’s-“

His voice is fading. Zelda stares long and unbroken at the photo and at some point she’s not seeing her or hearing him and her mind’s on an evening sun, the singing of children gliding free in the dying light.

_ Each age. _

“Heavens. This is-?”

“Yeah.”

Gone in an instant, her mind blitzing at all of the implications and the possibilities. “But how?”

Link doesn’t answer for a moment. Stands there. “They had to fill the slot.”

Zelda blinks. Of course they did. Because she chose not to go. Why does he sound like that? She looks up at him, wide-eyed and curious. His face is dark against the gray of the morning sky.

She turns back to the Slate, looking here and there, anywhere but up there. “Well, she’s lovely.” She tries a smile.

It’s a half-compliment. Her head is beginning to swim from looking at her. It’s like looking through a trick mirror.

“Curious,” She mumbles, “So much appears different, but something is…”

“The same.”

Zelda’s dizzy. She swipes to another photo. Her again. And again. And again. Someone, she doesn’t know who, tall and dark and covered in streamers with a disgusted expression. Then her again. Picking flowers. Laughing with others. Running down checker-tiled floors in candlelit hallways.

“Zelda.”

Dejected, dead. Why does he sound like that? She swipes at the same pace, really only glancing at some of the photos now as the breakfast begins to churn in her stomach. He’s in some of these. Zelda’s mouth is dry.  _ She’s _ with him in some of these. Smiling. Hand on his shoulder. She’s looking up from where she holds the camera, winking with him asleep in her lap on a stone bench.

_Why, why does he sound like that?_

Her hands drop away with the Slate still in them. Her eyes are everywhere, her brain rationalizing. She can’t look up. She has to, doesn’t she? She wets her lips and does it. Utter defeat etched into his face, shoulders slumped and hands limp. A man sinking into hell.

She lurches forward, her head faint. Mushroom on the grass now. She sees the mess, vomit stink in her mouth and gags, retching up more. His hand’s on her back and she jolts, seizing up at the touch with her eyes squeezed shut. Her skin is shivering off her. Her ears are ringing. Her throat is burning.

Then nothing.

The drumming’s gone in her ears. The muscles in her face relax, utterly soft and blank. She blinks once.

“Zelda.”

Weathered and beaten. She can’t recognize it. None of it. Her feet sink in the cool soil, one after the other and the grass tickles at her ankles. The Slate’s still in her fingers. She stares straight ahead but she doesn’t see anything.

He’s still standing by the pot when she leaves him there. 


	2. The Dream

A hooded figure trudging through the snow. It’s up to her knees and soaked through her leggings and her fingers crack at the joints as they draw the tunic over her face. Blow after blow of the blizzard streaks and she’s doubled over but she keeps staggering on. Where is she going? There’s nothing as far as the eye can see.

* * *

Sun. Yellow, harsh over the brim of her hat. A carefree wind whistles through the grass, over the misshapen stones marking the graves, from the expanse before Zelda and funneling through the peaks behind her. The cloth is foreign on her skin. She’s never worn Sheikah garb before. She hadn’t brought anything but the gown she wore and going back for anything else didn’t feel like an option. The Slate’s in her hands. Hard swallow. She honestly hadn't meant to take it with her. It just happened to be in her hands. He didn't stop her and now she's stuck with it. He didn't do anything. 

The camera app’s open and she examines herself, the way the beige of the robes lined in red fit over the underskin blue like midnight. Her face is the same as it was that day. Hollow, a piece left behind. Her eyes shift over to the blinking album icon. A thumb drifts slowly over to it and she hesitates. She taps a random thumbnail after a while. 

This one moves. The girl with blue eyes, fiddling with what appeared to be an instrument of some sort and her face beaming, eyes flitting between the camera and the thing in her hands.

_ “Now see, the thing about the flute is-“ _ Her voice. Light, enthusiastic.

_ “That’s not what he called it.” _ His voice. Something in Zelda sinks at how pleased it sounds.

The girl focuses on the boy behind the camera.  _ “Flute, ocarina, what difference does it make?” _

_ “Could make a whole lot of difference. What if the notes are all wrong?” _

_ “Then they’re wrong and we learn from there.” _

_ “What if you mess it up? We gotta give it back, you know.” _

_ “Mm, and suppose the whole mansion were to cave in on our heads, what then?” _ Teasing, that gleam in her eyes.

_ “Then I guess I couldn’t learn how to play the ocarina.” _

_ “The flute.” _

_ “I’m not very, uh, musically inclined anyway-“ _

_ “Come now. The concert? I saw the way your hips moved.” _

_ “With my hands. You know what I mean.” _

_ “If he could do it and he could do it and he could do it,” _ Finger dancing in the air, one imagined person after another,  _ “So can you. You only share their name, after all.” _

_ “Right, we’re all identical.” _

_ “Oh,” _ That tilt of the head, her eyes sparkling.  _ “I wouldn’t say that.” _

Zelda stops watching.

A goddess-blood girl in every age. Most records of the past legends were left to rot in malice-stew for a generation and Zelda can't remember every passage. Appearance-wise nothing rings a bell. __

_ What age is she from? Age, how old is she? Blue eyes, why? Why do they have to be green? Because yours are? Perhaps you’re the odd one out there. Does it come to her easily? The power to seal the darkness? Smiling so simply, like it's the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps it really is second-nature to her. Such an easy smile, easy eyes. Casual. Inviting. Such beautiful, flowing hair. You shouldn't have cut yours. _

“Your Grace.”

Zelda jumps, completely willing to forget her train of thought. Of course Paya spasms in response.

“Apologies friend.” Zelda winces at her voice. Fractured, some of the timber scraped out of it. “What is it?”

Red eyes scatter over her expression and Paya’s hands dart to her face as she ducks away.

“I-I was only wondering where you were. Steen was baiting Olkin again and Lasli overslept and Claree was quite angry and by the time I sorted through it all you were- well-“

“I’m sorry to have worried you. Truly, I’m sorry to be a bother at all.” She means it.

Paya pokes her face out from between her fingers, expression wide.

“Y-Your Grace, you could never be a bother! It’s an honor for Kakariko to house a member of the Royal Family!”

“Paya, please. You know me. Don’t treat me as anything less or more than that.”

Paya seems to calm some. Zelda hates the groveling. Always did. Does the girl in the Slate hate it too? Not with that smile. Zelda shakes the thought from her head.

“You say there’s some dispute between the vendors? Perhaps I may be of assistance.”

Yes, work, work. Work until she can’t think anymore.

Paya bows so low it’s a wonder she doesn’t taste dirt. “I’d be honored, Your Grace.”

“Zelda,” she insists.

“R-right!”

They leave the view and the wind and the tombstones. Zelda turns to see Paya linger at the graveyard for a moment before coming with.

* * *

Losing herself in the day-to-day life of Kakariko is easy, much to her relief. Quiet, small, but always something to settle. The townsfolk are nice and attend to her in a familial manner. She tries not to think of how much time and work is wasted by her squatting here. Kakariko, Necluda. A special village but just the one against seven other territories, all with their own buds to tend to. She’ll have to return soon, as much as the security and familiarity of this place coaxes her to stay. As bitter as it makes her, falling prey to comfortability. Another routine to hide in.

And then there are the dreams.

Every night the same snowstorm, that tiny black dot pressing on and it’s like she can smudge it out of existence with her finger. A never-ending blizzard every night since she left. Dreams aren’t supposed to have a meaning, nothing but eye movement and the impulse of the mind. She knows the theory but it does nothing to quell her anxiety and she’s left to sit up in her bed for Paya to find, staring through the wall every morning.

She hasn’t told Paya why she’s here. There are times where she wants to, to confide in another. And Paya’s smart. Zelda sometimes sees the confusion flash across her face at such a glaring absence. 

But how do you tell someone there’s another you? Not a verse in a hymn or a page in a legend, someone real, someone you could almost reach out and touch. Someone who did reach out. Who did touch. Paya’s too sweet for this sort of talk. And she has enough on her plate already.

* * *

One night she pulls up the covers and the dream is different. Endless field, golden sky. Someone is speaking, a girlish voice reverberating in Zelda’s head and leading her across the plain. Hushed murmurs. The castle stands proud in the distance, untarnished and pristine and almost mocking her in its perfection. The shapes grow more defined the closer she steps and she shades her eyes against the blinding light. Five champions of the realm, mythical and resolute with their backs to her.

She can’t help it; her first impulse upon seeing them is to shut her eyes. She can’t look at them now, after everything. She can’t allow herself that. The murmurs become words. Her legs seem to melt as the golden light flickers and she peers up and someone’s there, two people. A boy kneeling before a girl and Zelda strains to see as the world booms in her head…

That’s not her voice.

The girl looks up and there’s a flicker of blue and the golden light bursts, a sound like lightning cracking through her eardrums and Zelda claws at her own face as everything drowns in a winding wail, ceaseless, eternal. She stands on nothing and she dips forward-

-Into someone’s arms. Zelda grabs at the poor girl like a lifeline, dangling over the edge of a cliff with no bottom. There is no cliff. Wooden boards at her knees, the soles of her feet brushing against the bed frame. No cliff. Paya’s room. Paya’s arms. Cold sweat sticking her shirt to her back. Paya’s hand settles there, unsure, and Zelda almost gasps out an apology in the night air. The girl’s not fallen prey to her usual blathering. This is Paya, right? Zelda feels the frightened breaths shudder their way up from her chest and she knows. She clings to her that way for a while, blanket twisted around her leg and both of them collapsed on the floor.

Some time later and they sit beside each other, facing the table with the dim lamplight. Cup of warm goat milk in Zelda’s hands, engulfed in her quilt and she can’t help but feel embarrassed. Paya stares long and hard, has been for what feels like hours now as the two of them sit there and huddle close to the light like children. But she is childish. Waking her host up over nothing, using her spare bed, her clothes, her drink. She should apologize again, she has to. When the throbbing in her head has dulled.

Something breaks over Paya’s face and the light glints off her gaze. Eyes wide, red like blood in the light with her chin dipped low and she won’t stop staring.

“…What did he do?” She whispers. Afraid. Zelda holds her gaze for a moment before a sigh slips past her lips.

She brings up the Slate and the lump fills her throat. Familiar now. Pulls up the album almost without looking. She could completely cover her face and still land on a photo with  _ her _ in it. She happens to pick one featuring the two of them. Paya gently grasps the edge of the Slate without pulling it from her hands and Zelda can’t help but watch her expression now. Those blinks, slow at first before the realization fully dawns and it’s like that blood’s flowing over in her eyes.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Zelda’s head swims.

“Oh, Your Grace…” Paya’s voice breaking as she huddles closer, Zelda’s shoulders shaking as she holds the Slate.

* * *

The wind whistles as she comes to a stop at the head of the path that winds down between the shops and the houses. Her knuckles are scuffed, soil beneath her nails. In her hands is a single plum, plump and purple and hers. The fruit of her laborious efforts in Mellie’s yard. Zelda hadn’t asked for any sort of recompense upon her assisting of others, she never did. Still, the plum’s in her hands.

“Endurance and prosperity,” Zelda echoes the old croon’s words with a soft smile, shaking her head as she peers down at the prize. She looks up, basking in the brisk air of an evening come to its end with the stars popping into view, one by one. She gazes around the shops, closed. She looks back.

Link.

Still in the blue of her House, gauntlets leathered and worn. The wind lifts at his hair, the blond of it listing to the right where she can see it. A flawless portrait, ripped straight from the album. He stares at her. His lips part and his chest fills.

The plum thuds against the dirt and Zelda’s walking. Past the houses with their windows dark, past the shops empty of their employees. Anybody home? He steps behind her and Zelda hurries down the dirt road, big strides. A beeline to the big house and she manages to reach the foot of the steps before the crunch of his boots becomes unbearable.

“Please- stop,” she manages. 

Link’s a few paces away, rubbing the back of his neck and swaying on his feet. He nods hesitantly and takes a slow step back. Silence. He holds something up in his hand after a moment.

“Here.” The plum. He may as well have held up a remote bomb to her.

“B-beg pardon?”

“You dropped it.”

She stares numbly as the wind finally begins to settle.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You were holding it.”

“It’d be a waste. Thank you.”

His gaze is blank. “Okay.” His hand drops to his side.

Her words are softer than she expected. What did she expect? Not him. ‘Thank you?’

“I…” Tongue thick in her mouth, dragging along the bottom of it, “What brings you here?”

Link shoots a look at her and Zelda almost thinks he’s going to ask if she’s joking. His eyes flick down to her clothes before returning up.

“Paya’s?” His own voice, dry and quick.

Zelda gives the smallest of nods. Link glances attire over again and scratches his head.

“It’s…it’s good on you.”

Silence, like he’s still working up the nerve to say what he really wants. It’s good on me. Zelda’s expression narrows and she turns to the steps.

“Wait.”

Something. Finally something tangible and real in that voice, that face. It’s enough for her expression to falter and Zelda scolds herself for it.

He paces back and forth in front of her, kicking up dirt with his boots. His gaze going anywhere but hers. A wounded animal. The image hurts and Zelda wants to touch his face.

“Nothing I say’ll change what happened. But I,” he continues, hands on his hips, rolling his neck, “I wanted you to hear me say it. I owe you at least that much.”

Zelda can’t stop her knees from shaking.

“Hear you say…?”

Link looks at her then, brilliant blue in the dark, shimmering and soft. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

He didn’t want to. She turns away and his hand’s on her wrist. Gentle, but firm. She can escape this any time she wants. Escape from him? It didn’t add up.

“Let me go.”

“Wait.”

Her eyes shut. “I don’t think I can.”

Spirits, it’s like she never left the crib. Pathetic.

“I know,” he says, the firmness creeping into his voice and what, just what exactly does he have to be so firm about? She’s crumbling and he’s firm. “I know. Just, before. Before I go, I-“

She wrenches free from his grip, looking down at him from the first step with her hands curling into fists.

“You do know. You know better than anyone here, don’t you?”

Sharp and biting and his gaze hits the floor the instant she speaks. Her eyes itch. 

“Zelda.”

“Tell me,” she says, hating the tremble in her voice, “what was she like?”

He shudders through his entire body, the briefest of trembles through his shoulders. She’s never seen that before. Fascinating.

“Don’t ask me that.” Still looking down, away. The pain in his words. She blinks over and over.

“What was she like?” she repeats.

He stares up at her miserably like a lost boy in the ebbing twilight, mouth thin and tight.

“Was she fun?”

“Please.”

“Did she feel good?”

“Goddesses-“ A gasp tearing from his throat and his gaze rises skyward. 

“I hope she did. I truly, truly do.”

Her knees won’t stop shaking.

“And you know something else?” Losing that control in her voice, whatever was left, “I’m glad you waited so long to tell me.”

His face twitches, him shaking his head. “I couldn’t.”

She registers the words and the shapes get blurrier. “You couldn’t.”

His face begging her to understand. “…How could I do that to you?”

“I don’t know. How could you?”

“Zelda-“

“Goodbye.”

Zelda turns and she’s steadying herself on the rail as she hurries up the steps. Her head dips further back and she tries to will the tears back up where they belong. The creak of his steps follow hers and she wants to scream. 

“Go away. I mean it.” Zelda hears her own words and even she can’t believe them. 

“I will, as soon as you listen to me.”

“There’s nothing left to hear.”

“Please, you put up with my silence for this long.”

“It wasn’t a bother.”

“It’s only right I talk now.”

“There’s nothing right about this.” Her voice stifling into a hiss. 

“Wait,” He’s saying, “Just wait a-“

“I  _ did. _ ”

She whips around just as she steps onto the patio and her head is pulsing and her cheeks are wet and her breath’s hot through her nose. She glares at him, each hand wiping away at her face, one at a time and it's not enough. 

“I waited. I waited while we flushed out the rest of the monsters, I waited as we drove the Yiga back to the desert. I waited and thought I could have faith in something for once. I could believe. Do you know…” A deeper breath, “Every day, working the schedule, tending the fields without you there. Every night, living in your house and lying in your bed and thinking goddess above I know not where he is but if you are up there, please,  _ please,  _ all I ask is that he come home safe and sound and whole.”

“...Why didn’t you come?” he says and the world seems to freeze over.

She blinks. “You know why-”

“I know, I  _ know _ ,” he says, his teeth grit and his brow knit down, “But  _ why _ ?”

“What do you want me to say?” Sputtering now, hysterical. “I’m sorry I’m not you, I don’t know just what to say at just the right time-“

“I don’t ask for that,” voice raised, the closest he’s ever gotten to shouting and she flinches, “I never did, of course I don’t-”

“Then what do you want! What do you want from me!? W-what…” the air can’t fill her lungs fast enough and she clings to the post, “What did I have to do? What…what could I have…”

He exhales, eyes half-lidded and looking elsewhere, brow twisted up. Another new expression.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Evidently I did.”

“It…it can’t be like that. I won’t let you.”

“Noted.”

“I did this. You’re not allowed to do that when it’s something I did.”

“You rejected the routine. Simple as.”

“Zelda, I swear nothing about you is routine. Swear to Hylia.”

“If I grew my hair out again. Would that have sufficed?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“Perhaps if I smiled more often. Playing with my hair and giggling like a schoolgirl.”

“Zelda.”

“Do you prefer green or blue? It’s alright, we’re alone. It’ll be our little secret.”

“I’m not biting.”

“I wish you would.”

His hand moves and it’s so close. A stroke of her cheek, a brush over her chin. It’d be so easy for him and she looks at his face and knows she wouldn’t stop him. She’d beg for it. Then his eyes glaze over and the hand’s a fist and it drops. “I wish you came. I wish it was possible. I do.”

Her lips twist and something burns. “There it is. There’s our answer. Forget the eye color or the hair length or even how good any of it feels, the solution was presence all along! And with the evidence gathered thus far I honestly cannot hope to counter it, in this life or the next, it’s the honest to goddess truth and this all could have been avoided if I were just, just a little more present. Every step, every breath, every second watching and waiting and guiding like some stray mongrel lest you crumble to the whims and fancies of another girl, another princess, someone else to whisk you off your feet and smile and laugh and do all those other things I can never, ever hope to be! Absurdity. Spontaneity. Two blows and your armor crumbles. Thank you. I know better now, thank you  _ so much _ .” Hard and ragged breaths, shoulders rising and falling. “Thank you.”

Agonizing seconds sinking in the silence. Her pants slow and the red’s already draining away, the clarity flooding her brain. He shakes his head a little, expression so small, that tiny half smile with eyes so soft and open. The most open she’s ever seen them.

“She wasn’t just another girl.” 

The fire’s doused. He says something else, his lips moving. Heavens is that all it takes? Her arms over her chest, crumpling over. A few words and she dies? Strangling the sob in her throat, willing it into nothing.  _ Damn you _ . She shrinks away from the stranger before her, timid, broken. He stares. The plum’s in his hand.

“Take it.”

“No.”

“Please, take it.”

“Go. Goddesses, just go.”

“Master Link.”

How long has she been there, standing at the doorway? Zelda’s vision is hazy and she doesn’t see the whole of the person, just the hand on the door slightly ajar, the white hair with the chin raised and the eye on her forehead, all-seeing, all-knowing.

“Paya.” Link says as if remembering where he is. 

Paya regards him, the blood in her eyes. Wide, hurt, afraid. Resolved.

“…Please leave.”

* * *

She’s walking through pine trees. The world is white and heavy and each step drives deeper into that shifting form. The air pokes needles through her skin and the hand she tries to hold up seems a pitiful defense as the wind shrieks through her, milky grey sky that churns daggers of ice sparkling in a torrent around her. Looming shape, piercing through that cover and growing larger by the second. She doesn’t know where she’s going and yet she does. The shape grows more concrete just as she stumbles again in the snow, a speck shrinking in a growing white.

Zelda’s eyes flutter open, barely conscious of the night. The image is still vivid in her head, a violent whirlwind swallowing her whole. She decides she’s done sleeping. 

* * *

Summer day, golden sun washing out the blue. They’ve found something. At the castle, under it somewhere. She hasn’t had the chance to look at it herself. Whatever it is, it sounds big. Big enough to investigate in person. Good. It’s about time she returned to the rest of the world, leave this purgatory behind. 

Maybe she’d leave this damned dream behind too.

Zelda stands on the patio and rubs the bags under her eyes. Heavier with each sleepless night. Her head shakes. Irrational. Define your desire to leave using tangible evidence, not the illusion of an ethereal one. Explain your process. 

Perhaps it’s the pillars and rising peaks, once comforting and almost like a tomb now. Towering over, trapping her with herself and she can’t escape the suffocation. Perhaps it’s simply that nowhere feels right. Not the shops, not the little houses. Especially not the big house. She doesn’t know how she withstood it for so long. So much is different. That empty space the first thing you see after walking through the door. She can’t stay there another second, and before she knows it Zelda’s dragging herself to the graveyard, almost in a trance. Someone’s already there.

She clings to the stone surface beside her as Paya kneels before one of the rocks. It’s larger than the others. More pristine. Zelda had really pushed for that, back then. Her hands are clasped in prayer, head dipped down respectfully. None the wiser to Zelda’s presence.

“I’m no good at this.” Paya’s voice is almost scattered by the wind. “I can’t stop reminding everyone of that. I’m really not. Not like you. But…i-it’s getting better. Everything starts to click, just like you said it would.”

An awkward angle. She’s still able to see Paya open her eyes, staring at the grave.

“I only wish you were here to see it. Perhaps you’d have a few more pointers.”

Her soft laugh turns into a sniffle and Zelda instinctively turns away, hand to her chest.

It’s time.

* * *

She doesn’t know what to expect. The horse snorts softly as she dismounts, slippers on the soil and the cicadas in the air. Over the small bridge, up the path to the home she’d been so fond of. Silly, really. It’s no more unique than most of the architecture in Hateno. Wobbly, a little misshapen, almost like it was molded from the earth with stones in the clay. The little chimney on top. No smoke. Zelda inhales slowly, eyes fluttering shut before snapping open and she braces herself as she opens the door and steps through.

Her head shifts as she slowly scans the room, nodding gently to herself with the muscles flat on her face. “Just as well.”

The wall mounts are empty, the table bare. Light layer of dust over everything. He must’ve left soon after she did. She scoffs, shuffling over to the little nook next to the stairs and beneath the loft. Her clothes, blueprints, all right where she’d left them that day. Of course his aren’t.

Slipping into her old attire feels too natural. The blue with the gold trim, the black hugging her legs and her toes curling in the boots. Too familiar, maybe. She scoffs before throwing everything else into the Slate. Not hers, but it’d have to do for now. She could leave it with Purah at some point, when everything’s settled and Zelda’s back in the heat of things. The routine. Perhaps the castle will be habitable soon. Sooner if she wraps up everything here.

Zelda heads up the stairs. That night, her sitting at the top and him the bottom. Pleading with him in the dark. Each step makes her eyelids heavier and her legs all the sorer and she tries to shake it all off as she reaches the top. The bed’s there, empty and nothing but sheets.

Very well. She turns and something catches the light, sitting on the bed and glinting. Her stomach’s heavy and she already knows what it is as she inches closer. It can’t be anything else. She reaches over, tentative, and before she knows it the picture frame’s tight in her fingers. The photo’s still there.

She means for it to plop back onto the sheets. Maybe it’d bounce a little as she steps out the door, and maybe it’d still be there when someone else comes to settle the vacancy. A little housewarming gift. Maybe there won’t be someone else. Maybe they’ll just tear it all down, like they originally wanted to. The frame just can’t seem to leave her hands.

A few minutes later and it goes into the Slate, the tendrils of blue light snaking up in the air as it disappears. The resentment only makes her feel heavier and the springs creak as she drops onto the bed. So heavy.

“Idiot,” she can’t help but whisper, “this was yours.”

* * *

Here again, of course she is. White. The speck sinks in the snow and the wind drowns her pulse. Something glowing at the top. The mountaintop. Yes the mountaintop, yes I know what it is, is that what you want? May I leave now? Her fingers dig into her scalp and she tries to yell but the wind takes that too and it’s like her skull bursts. Maybe this time 

* * *

Zelda gasps, vision adjusting to the sunlight. Her knuckle wipes at the corner of her mouth and she sits up straight. She couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes. The walls bare. Table empty. Her head throbs and she truly takes it all in. So empty but her mind so full with this vision she does not want, incessant and maddening. How fair is that? Her teeth grind together as her breathing calms and her face is tight and she wonders if she’ll really never be free. As hopeless as the dream. She stays like that for one agonizing moment after another. The bed that used to be theirs.

Zelda stands up.

She’s marching over the bridge, wood screeching beneath her boots as she taps furiously at the Slate. The marker’s set and the horse neighs and she’s off, the drum of hooves kicking at the trail whipping the sun-kissed locks over her glare. As her heart thumps and thumps and thumps.

* * *

It’s afternoon by the time she reaches the gate. Weathered and yellowed and close to crumbling. The clouds blot out the ink of the sky and the temperature dips and it’s the first time she’s been here since that day. A hundred years ago and the cracks in the moss-covered stone won’t let her forget that fact. The Slate’s heavy in her hand and she’s so close to just trashing the confounded thing. She used to love carrying it everywhere, cataloging the flora and fauna and whining whenever he’d show up and ruin it. She whined a lot, didn’t she? Zelda looks back down and she blinks.

When did she open the album again? Another photo, so gleeful and pleasant with  _ her _ smirk and Zelda’s shock quickly fades as she swipes it all away with a furious finger. Colder by the second, the closer she inches to the platform. When had she begun walking forward to begin with? She hoists herself up onto the grassy terrace, frost crunching beneath her and icicled trees lining the path as the chill settles in. Her gaze rises and there it is. Vast, almost surreal in its sheer stature. So far off she can just barely make the top. No glow. No blizzard. Just an ordinary mountain.

_ It’s not ordinary though, is it? If it’s so insignificant…why have you never returned? _

Her vision bobs up and down with her steps, the peak shimmering in and out of the fog. The crunch beneath her feet fades into a soft thud. Snow, but a very light layer of it. Even so it’s enough to make her stop and her breath hitches.

“What are you doing here?” She mumbles aloud, something sparkling all around her. “A few silly dreams and you’re going up there again?”

_ You won’t find anything. You didn’t before. You won’t now. _ The first drop of snow settles on the tip of her nose and she shuts her eyes and breathes.

Mt. Lanayru stands silent. Of course it does. Zelda glares at the inanimate landscape and she’s marching again.


	3. The Truth

She might be dreaming again. She knows she isn’t. 

No blizzard. No screeching hailstorm burying her in the snow. The white caps on the pine trees are actually fairly peaceful. Chillshrooms pocket the edges of the trail, little shoots of blue glowing faint on a white blanket. The snowfall itself is heavier now though. Fluffy and bright, but it’s there. Zelda rubs it off her cheeks and she’s sure she makes quite the appearance. Silly little girl in slacks marching up Mt. Lanayru.

Better than the dress.

Her next step leaves her boot up to its ankle in the dune. Zelda almost bites her tongue. The wind seems to whistle for just a moment and her heart’s in her ears. Then she rolls her eyes and yanks the foot out, marching on again.

Waste of time. There are things that need doing. Buds that need tending. She’s spent too much time away from it all as it is. Isn’t that why she left? No, she left because of the dream. That’s why she’s here now. Isn’t it both? The tundra plugs at her feet and she’s kicking through it now. A wolf’s howl in the distance. She marches on and she reaches the base of the mountain. Somehow she sees less of it now than she did at the start of the hike.

That’s what she’d told him, wasn’t it? Things that needed doing. Of course she couldn’t go.  _ Don’t think about him. You’re not here for him. The last thing you need is that ache in your chest. _ Her boot presses down on the first stone step, half-buried in the snow. Getting harder to see.

_ Why did you lie? _

The wind’s definitely howling now and the snow rushes past her face at an angle, on and on and on as she continues the climb. She pushes back against the force of it with her next step, and then the next. She didn’t lie, of course she didn’t. She did have to do. To tend. To build.

_ You lied. Of course you could have worked something out. How do you think  _ she _ got there? _

I don’t care how she got there.

_ But you do. _

She’s gasping against the cold and curses it for the pain bubbling in her chest. She doubles over at the first turn, the path winding up and up and up into that burning ice. Goddesses, she can’t feel her face. She took an elixir and still she can’t feel her face. Maybe there’s something in the Slate for this. The thought’s dismissed as quickly as it comes. Her hands press into her cheeks for a long while, then the breath leaves her lips in a huff and she’s back up again.

_ Absurd. Of course you can take something from the Slate. You shoved your entire wardrobe in there and now you can’t take one doublet out? _

It’s not mine.

_ It never was. Didn’t stop you before. Clutching it so tightly your knuckles turned white. A lifetime ago.  _

I’m not touching something that’s his.

_ Childish. _

Something’s so cold it burns. Her clothes are heavy, damp and her fingertips are tinged the faintest blue. She blinks. No, they're not. Huffing her way up the trail. The next turn a million miles away and she hikes each leg up out of the white sea.

Why should she have gone? It would only have delayed the inevitable. He’d finally found something she didn’t have. He’d finally freed himself. Maybe that’s why he went. Don’t be absurd. But she knew he would eventually. It just made sense. Panting, her breath crystalizing in the very air above her.

_ Stupid girl. Of course he didn’t want you. It was written all over his face. You’re supposed to be good at reading those. Any ruler worth her salt should be. Such a fool, so worried and distraught over him those first few days. A foreign illness. _

They all must have adored him over there, wherever ‘there’ was. Perhaps they’ll invite him back. Who knows, she’d read that in the clause at the end of the letter before tossing it aside.

_ You hated him. _

"No." 

It's the smallest sound and then the wind bellows, a true and guttural roar and it rattles her down to her bones. Damp and wet through her leggings, frost lining her hair and dripping with her breaths. She blinks a few times and she trudges on.

_ You hated him so much. You wouldn’t let him forget it. How dare he earn what you couldn’t. The strength, the glory. The courage. What did you earn? Three pilgrimages to three springs and each time,  _ **_nothing_ ** _. _

Her boots slide across the steps. She hunches over to steady herself. 

_ Stupid girl when the world ended. Stupid girl now. He did his job because you left him with nothing else. Following you even when you’d scream at him not to, fighting for you, bleeding for you. Dying for you. What did you do for him? _

I didn't ask him to do any of that.

_ But you wanted him to love you. _

And? 

_ And loving you was just another duty on top of the pile, no matter how much he said otherwise. _

No it wasn't. 

_ You hated him until you didn’t. _

I…

_ You trapped him. _

I didn't. 

_ You hate him now. _

“I don't,” she whispers. 

_ Then what were those screams for? _

She ducks against the blizzard and she almost slips into the heap. 

You did. 

Zelda lurches and collects herself as the world threatens to bury her. 

You do. 

Icicles in her throat. 

And you drove him right to  _ her _ . 

Her tears freeze on her cheeks and everything’s that much colder. The glare steams her expression and her strides are more purposeful. Leaving the last bend behind her.

_ How could she? How could she take him from me? _

The Slate’s numb in her fingers and the peak’s right there. Just one more push.

_ Wicked girl, her sparkling eyes and her smirk and the lilt in her voice. Liar. Harlot, smug and alluring and sweet and so, so inviting. How long did it take for her to bed him? A week. No, a day. See something beautiful and she just snatched it up, just like that. Are we all destined to be so terrible? Goddesses, how could she do that? _

**_Stop following_ **

Me. 

Her head lists in a daze and the fog begins to break as she climbs ever higher. Almost there.

Of course she took him. She probably loved him better.

Another shaky step and suddenly everything stops. It’s there. That glittering pool, the stone statue in the center. If not for the glowing blue in the cave behind it, it’d be exactly as it was. The Slate slides out of her numbed fingers and she steps forward, her head so light and her cheeks frozen and her eyes half-lidded. Something warm trickling from her lips so chapped.

“I’m here, see? I’m devoted. I’m faithful. Here just like that day. That one last failure tipping everything over. My, I truly did make a mess, didn’t I?” Smiling and the something trickles down further. “I suppose I just couldn’t help myself. You know me. But I’m here.”

Her boots touch the water and it almost shocks her back to reality. The light over Hylia seems to shimmer ever brighter.

“They’re all gone. Oh yes, I saw to that. Fated to doom everything I touch. I even got him in the end, somehow.” Her eyes flutter shut and the frosted lashes crack. “He breathes but don’t worry. He gets to live with what I did to him now.”

The statue’s blank. Zelda’s shaking.

“An honest mistake. You must have made one, somewhere. That’s the only way. Everything dead, everyone, and even he is, in a way. And you just…let me. An oversight. A miscalculation.”

Her legs are numb and she buckles and her hands in the shallow water scream as she yanks them back out. Something bright’s breaking through the clouds and the silence crushes her.

“And even when it was over, it wasn’t. Miscalculation. I let him leave and what did I expect when he came back?” She gulps, her tongue dragging like sandpaper against the roof of her mouth. “I pull so hard. I know I do. I’m sorry. You’re not wicked, you’re not a harlot. Of course not.” Her hands clasp weakly. “What else could you do? Lost hero, so beautiful and alone and- and untended to. You did what any of us would do. A forgotten bud in the field. No, no…it was me. I know it was. It always is.”

The tip of her nose glances the water and something catches in her throat. Her head’s up and she’s imploring, begging at nothing.

“But it was real, wasn’t it? I didn’t imagine that. He didn’t hate me, he didn’t even if he should have. It was real even if I did what I do with everything.” Eyes big, searching. “Tell me.”

Silence.

She whimpers. “He was mine. He was mine and I was his and he did love me. He had to have, even just once.”

Silence.

“ _ Tell me. _ ”

Silence. 

“ _ Vile bitch, _ ” she spits and she’s sucking her breath back in, her fingers numb and clasped even tighter, “No, no, no. I don’t…I didn’t…” 

She burns. Her knees, her arms, her face in the water and for a moment she can’t get up, the ice rippling around her and she stays until she’s sure there’s nothing left and then she’s sputtering up and out of the shallows, stumbling back to land with the fabric waterlogged and heavy. A step here, a step there and she falls to a crawl on the banks, inching and moaning forward and she can’t feel anything. Each hand digging through the soft until one of them presses on something hard and glossy.

Zelda’s bleary-eyed when she sees the Slate in her fingers. She stares. It’s a slow and gradual thing, her chest heaving and heaving and heaving and then she’s bringing the tablet up and wailing as it crashes down, over and over and over. A dull vibration rocketing up her arms in each slam. She screams until her lungs scorch and she’s sure she’ll never hear her own voice again. The wail fizzles out and she slows to a stop. Not a crack on its surface. She sniffs in the frigid mountain air and collapses on her side, hair splayed over her face and onto the white death and Slate still in her hands. She stays there, limp and dead as the pale light washes over her. 

When did she bring up the album again? A listless finger, sliding through each photo over and over and over and she's too tired to look away this time. 

Heavens, look at her. Look at him. He was never like that here. _ I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I'm sorry. _

There’s a growing heat in Zelda’s eyes, even as she’s smiling. This one’s funny. Goodness, the cleanup on that one must have been a monumental effort. A strange noise pulling from her, sharp intakes that jerk her up a little and it makes her chest hurt even more than the cold could. She doesn’t know how long it takes, shifting past the photos and recordings in the dozens, hundreds. A blur of gold and blue. 

She reaches the last thumbnail. 

Zelda’s head lifts a little. For the first time, there’s nothing. No princess, no knight. Just some cushy chairs and couches and something glowing behind them, warm and orange and out of focus. The slate’s propped up on something there, she can’t tell what it is. The edge of a table, perhaps. Her eyelids are heavy.

The fire starts moving.

She blinks repeatedly as the flames flicker and crackle. A recording of nothing but a burning hearth. Perhaps this was a fib meant for herself. Their closing act. Someone’s shuffling around out of view, she can hear the steps. A shape moves over the fireplace, brings something down and then it’s gone again. The sound of something shifting in porcelain and the carpet muffles it. Nothing again. The room crackles and pops and it’s like that a little longer. The steps grow closer. 

Pink flashes over the frame. The hems of a dress sway in view and the gold trim of an inlaid belt and the figure dips and it’s her. Pretty blue eyes, orange glinting off the platinum of her long tresses and she’s kneeling and perfect and Zelda’s reeling from it all, curling and writhing on the snow as the air wheezes through her nose. 

“ _ Surprise. _ ” Girly and impish through the Slate. “ _ I’ve been counting the days, you know. Wondering and waiting when you’d bring it up. I’d wager you weren’t expecting this, were you? _ ” 

What, what is she talking about? Zelda glimpses the screen through her limp strands. That same smile on her face. Those baby blues darting here and there, never focusing on the lens for too long. 

“ _ You never picked it up. That day, when… _ ” The slightest strain on her voice. “ _ It was simply lying there. So I kept it, and I waited. But then we… _ ” she clears her throat, rubbing her arm and wincing. The smile’s back. “ _ So I kept it. I must admit, I did fiddle around with it a tad. Sorry! I suppose I just couldn’t help myself. _ ” The giggle's half-hearted, airy and awkward before it dies. “ _ And now it’s all coming to a close. _ ” 

The girl’s arms come up to rest over the table and she plants her chin down on the hands. “ _ Fancy that. A few days and this all vanishes. Just so. Almost makes one wonder if any of it truly happened. _ ”

She sighs, head tilting and her index finger taps gently on the surface, her gaze lowered. “ _ But it did. Not to worry, this’ll find its way back to you before we depart. I’ll make sure of it. _ ” Something eats away at her smile and it’s weak, the finger dragging to a stop and she gazes off with her brow twitching. 

“ _ I’m sorry. I know how much you blame yourself. I see it every day. I’m sure you notice me. I’m sorry for that too. _ ” Her eyes shimmering. “ _ Silly boy. Shouldering all that weight. Just once I’d like to do a bit of the heavy lifting myself, you know. But I know. I know that’s not how this works. _ ” She stares into the lens. “ _ And it will never be in your nature to let me. _ ” 

Her gaze lowers again for a moment, nose twitching and the smile's gone. Zelda watches. 

“ _ I can’t regret it. _ ” Hushed, almost a whisper. “ _ No matter how much I hate it. How it feels now, settling in here the way it does. I can’t. It was wonderful. Beautiful. Awful. All of it. _ ” Her sigh is shaky. “ _ But it’s over now. It has to be, and perhaps it was never supposed to be in the first place. I can accept that. But that's not enough. The certainty's missing. And, that's... _ ” 

She takes a deep breath. “ _ I must. I know I must. _ ” she says as the shimmer wells up in the corners of her eyes. “ _ That sort of choice. To burden you with something like that, I… _ ” she shudders, shakes her head in her hands, “ _ No. This is the least I can do. I have to try. You, who listened to me. Laughed with me, wandered with me. Cooked for me. Understood me. Even when it hurt you so, so much. _ ” She shudders again. “ _ It will hurt for the rest of your life and I, it’s- _ ”

She’s up off her hands, her shoulders rising and falling and then she laughs again, rubbing at her eyes. “ _Forgive me. Just, just..._ ” she nods to herself, eyes shut for a moment. They open again, so big and soft. “ _I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. I’ll be fine, I...”_ voice wavering again and she breathes and it’s gone, “ _Watching you. Seeing you drift and hate and sink and...die. Watching and doing nothing for it because then you_ ** _will_** _die. Even just the watching kills you enough but I can't look away and I know I never will. So don't drift. Don't sink. Move. Breathe, please breathe._ ” 

Her eyes sparkle, smile brighter. 

" _ For her. _ ” 

The shapes are blurry. Zelda blinks, the tablet shaking in her fingers. 

“ _ That love which I could only hope to glimpse. Never mine, never…"  _ a shudder and she shakes her head, her eyes glistening. _ "Laugh with her. Dream with her. You make her forget all the darkness and the sorrow until she’s smiling in every photo and perhaps…perhaps she’ll accept the letter next season. Perhaps the ghosts will leave her. Perhaps she can afford to breathe. And perhaps you get to live. _ ”

" _ Zelda? _ " Another voice, a woman's. " _ You in here? _ "

“ _ Coming, Palu. _ " Looking far off to the right, the sudden brightness in her voice so painfully artificial. Her gaze returns to the lens. 

" _ Well, _ ” she breathes and her expression flickers, her smile fleeting as she poses for the lens. Sparkling. “ _ Ta-ta. _ ”

She reaches over to the Slate as Zelda does. The recording cuts out and Zelda’s hand flinches. Her fingers curling into her palm and she gasps in her throat, the water trickling down from her eyes and salty on her lips. She draws into herself with the Slate cradled in her chest, stroking it with numbed fingers and she shivers and shudders and the water trickles down with her eyes pressed painfully shut. The release flows in waves and the statue gazes at her, calm and serene with the light fading on the weathered stone. 

* * *

The crystals peaking in the sky, the sun behind the gray fading and glinting through them. Each step on the path down leaves her wobbling as she looks at that blanket of gray. No evidence of a land outside that mist. If one didn't know any better, this may as well be the world. It's warm and she's becoming very sleepy. Another misstep and her eyes shoot open, almost reflexively before her shoulders slump again. 

The Slate clutched tight against her. Everything around her is loose and open but that, even with the feeling lost in her hands and full in her mind. It's a bit smothered by the warmth, though. 

She might be dying. This is what happens, isn't it? The cold sinks deeper and deeper until suddenly it's not and you're lying in the snow without even remembering the fall. What a way to leave. 

Does she want to leave? 

Zelda rounds the next bend. More path winding down and down and down until the mist's thick and she can't see anything else. One step at a time. The heel of her boot slides again and she catches herself before she hits the ground but her eyes stay lidded. So warm. One step at a time, peering down at the boots as they go. The only sort of focus she can muster at this point, so when she hears the crunch of others she doesn't really register it. Heavy and mechanical at first, then a pause and they're urgent, crunch after crunch after crunch. Quiet down. 

She walks right into him, head still down and he's stiff as a board. Her head dipped against his shoulder, the leather plush and soft as she looks at her boots and marvels at how they've stopped. He's frozen with her frame smashed against his for a moment, then another. Then she feels the air leave him and his hands are gripping her shoulders, mittens wiping frost from her cheeks and rubbing her hands together. 

"Hey you." Her voice is cracked, whistley. 

He doesn't say anything at first, breathing hard and scowling as he fusses over her with the feather wiggling around in his hair. "Goddesses Zelda, you couldn't find the doublet?" 

She laughs and it's like a ship breaking through the ice. It trails off and his mittens are gone, rummaging through this- this enormous bag. Oh. Oh Hylia. The ship breaks through more ice and Link glances up, worried. 

"Here you go," he huffs and something red glints in the mist and something metal's on her head. Oh,  _ this _ is warmth. The tiara shifts crooked on her head and it's clearly not made for her. She sighs as the heat tickles her bones and her legs go limp, head resting in the crook of a plush shoulder. 

* * *

She wakes and there's a fire. Somewhere in the pass to the gate, the snow and the white are forgotten as the rain spatters against the slick of the cliffside overhead. He'd managed to find a nook to hide them in. He always knows things like that. Her eyes itch. She rubs at them, swollen and sore. He's rummaging through that big old bag again, expression tight and focused. Rito feathers. Expensive. She'll have to...scold… 

She sneezes, hair flying this and that way and in an instant he's at her face, wiping roughly with a- is that a fox-skin? The wet's gone, as gone as it can be, and he's back to pulling things from his bag. Blankets. Dry fabric. The fire roars. 

"I dried those best I could," he grunts, waving a hand at her in her damp clothes without looking, "Tell me when you're ready." 

She stares. "I'm ready." 

He stops instantly, walks further away. "Alright." Facing the end of the crevice. 

They're more robes than clothes. Thick wool that rolls in waves down her arms, the auburn down her legs. The Slate probably has something better. He might have made these himself. The Slate probably doesn't. 

The Slate. 

She searches like a lost puppy for the tablet and there it is, propped up deeper against the rocks. Present. Safe. 

Link's still facing the corner. 

"I-" she coughs into her hand, "I'm finished." 

He turns and he's already working again, stoking the flames then pulling the pot out of that endless bag. He might've made that too. 

"You can-" she says and his eyes are up and they stop her for a moment. "...The Slate. None of this is- we may simply make use of that." 

The blue of his eyes glinting in the yellow licks. "I messaged ahead. Royal Guard should be here by daybreak." 

Back to work. Zelda sits down and watches. The rain pours. 

An hour or so later, when the plate's in her hand and the seafood fry is spread on her lips and spice is tingling her tongue, she's still watching him. Moving, doing. Her face is soft. 

"Stop." 

He stops, gaze lowered.

"Look at me." 

A moment passes. Then he does. Zelda stares again, blinking a little. 

"...How?" 

He's silent, eyes shifting. She waits as long as he needs. 

"Wasn't following you." 

"It's fine if you were." 

His brow furrows but then it's flat again. "I messaged the Guard. They'll be here soon." 

"That's not what I asked." Gliding closer to him, slowly, carefully. She stoops down to match his level, crouched by the fire and he stares at the burning wood. 

"I honest to goddess wasn't following you," he stresses. "I wasn't. Up until now, I didn't even know where you were." 

She drinks in his appearance. "Then what were you doing?" 

He sighs, frustrated at something in himself. Eyes flitting here and there across the fire. Searching. 

"I wanted to- no," He says at last, breathing in, "No, I had to tell you. I had to. Spirits, how did I go that long without...I had to. But how could I? Either step was the bad one. Guess I took the bad step way before that anyway." 

She watches him, listening. "Go on." 

Eyes still searching. "Talking. Holding. Breathing. None of it felt right, not when you didn't know. So I couldn't do any of that either. Stuck like that, deep in the mud. Then you thought it was you, and it was like an even worse step. All I knew at that point was to make sure you knew that it wasn’t. You couldn't think like that. And then you knew and you were gone." 

Silent. His chest rising and falling, staring ahead. 

"And that's the way it was gonna go. The way it had to go, and I knew that. So it happened and I figured I'd go away too. Maybe they'd remember you and forget about me. Walking, running. I put the Sword back." 

Her breath hitches at that, but she says nothing. 

"But it wouldn't leave me. Me standing there, under the tree and not saying anything. No. No, so I went and I found you and I messed it all up even more. Messed it right up so I left again telling myself, that's it, you're done, you don't get to see her again. Not after all this. But then, I…" 

Her hands on her lips and she wants so desperately to speak. But she's silent and waiting for him. 

"...That night. I had this dream." 

The fire crackles, the rain pouring. 

"This dream. I was in the snow, not walking, not moving. Somewhere in the pines, watching this smudge inch on past. Watching the hail and the storm just, you know, just beat down this person driving on through it. And I tried to say something, anything, tell them to stop or wait but I couldn't. All I could do was watch.

"Every night, same thing. Open my mouth, twist, squirm, it's like the words just didn't wanna go. And every night they'd just move farther and farther away, into this ink. Gray and dirty, something big they were headed towards and I couldn't help them. 

"And it's like this thing in your gut, you know? I dunno. Stewing in there, waiting for you to get up and go yeah, alright. Fine. Whatever it is, I'll do it. Just leave me alone, maybe." Breathing through his mouth, and his face turns to her until she's staring into a sea. 

"I think I knew, though. Down there, somewhere. Even if I didn't think it, it was there. Something in me, telling me hey, if you go…maybe that wasn't it. Maybe...maybe you get to see her again." He stares, chest rising and falling. Pain in his eyes and he turns and the sea's gone, lost in the flames. 

Her fingers on his sleeve and he flinches. Drawing up his shoulder, over the muscles through the coat on his back and he's stiff and stone when her arms are thrown over him, cheek against his. He doesn't move, breathing hard. 

"No," in his throat, hoarse and helpless, "No- I- no." 

She hugs him tighter, almost collapsing into him and he falls silent. It's like that a little, her eyes squeezed shut and hand running through the back of his head. That night. Her dying and him with the plum in his hand and his words running her mind blind. 

Link clings to her, shaking and breathing and she shushes him, gentle as the fingers stroking through his hair even as his hands twist the wool, rooting her. Even as her chin trembles and she fights to keep herself there. His words in her head. Zelda tries to hear them. 

_ She wasn't just another girl.  _

_ She was you.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it. Finally, haha  
> Once again, cannot thank intangiblyyours enough for proofreading and for providing her input on something she hates.


End file.
